1 Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a disc changer for automatic changing of a disc to a disc drive using bare discs for recording and/or regeneration, for example, optical discs such as CD-ROM and magneto-optic (MO) disc.
2 Description of Related Art
Conventionally, disc changers mostly uses a disc cartridge which is the cartridge which contains a disc, and automatically changes a disc to a disc drive.
In the case in which some information is recorded and/or regenerated simultaneously on a plurality of disc cartridges using a plurality of disc drives arranged vertically, a plurality of rack containers arranged vertically for containing disc cartridges and a plurality of disc drives arranged vertically are placed in two lines with front sides in the same direction, and a disc cartridge conveyer moves in the first direction and the second direction perpendicular each other in the horizontal plane and in the vertical direction to convey a disc cartridge between the plurality of rack containers arranged vertically and disc drives.
However, such a conventional disc changer using disc cartridges is disadvantageously restricted in disc containing capacity, because the volume of a disc cartridge is larger than that of a bare disc.
A conveyer which conveys a disc cartridge in three directions of the orthogonal axes has a complex structure, costs alot, and requires a large space for conveying, thus the minimization of a disc changer is limited disadvantageously.